The Computers

Enough with all the grunt work! The fun soon began with this car when I started thinking of ways to control all the electrical functions of the car. Basic as a VW is, it still took time to figure out the electromechanics of the car. One basic idea I had early on was to remove all the buttons on the dashboard except for one, the starter button. The rest of the control was given to a flat screen monitor embedded in a fiberglass dashboard that my very talented son created. The monitor is driven by the brains of the car, an Intel ATOM processor based computer running Windows XP (soon to be Windows 7).

The Atom processor is in the gold colored box on the left and the controller and associated I/O controller, input filter and relays are to the right. Excuse the wiring. I still have alot of wire management to do.

The next shot of the interior shows the two front speakers and the custom console with the embedded touchscreen display. You really can't see it but the only button available is where the original ignition key was on the steering column.

Here's a the basic block diagram of the electronics and features. I'll get into more of the detail later.